Bank of England puts UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank into resolution

The Bank of England has moved to put the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank into resolution after it applied for £1.8bn of liquidity as its parent company was collapsing on Friday.

The Financial Times has learned that the Prudential Regulation Authority, which oversees the UK entity, believes that the London-based operation cannot be viable on a standalone basis following the takeover of SVB in the US by regulators on Friday.

Officials have begun conversations with professional services firms on overseeing the resolution process.

The decision to call time on SVB UK was taken after the bank applied to the BoE’s discount window, which offers short-term funding to banks, for £1.8bn on Friday.

The BoE declined to comment. Earlier, it said it was “aware of the issues impacting the firm and [we] are closely engaging with it and overseas regulators”.

A spokesman for SVB’s UK arm had no immediate comment.

On Friday afternoon, SVB UK posted a statement on Twitter stressing that it was a “standalone independent banking institution”. 

“We appreciate that this is a concerning time for our clients so we are working tirelessly to support them and give more context,” Erin Platts, chief executive and head of SVB UK, said in a statement. The tweet has since been removed.

Created in 2012 as SVB’s first overseas branch, the UK arm became a subsidiary last August. It boasted a team of 700 people across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to a tweet from the UK bank’s official account at an awards ceremony last week.

Additional reporting by Michael O’Dwyer